QuickREAD

March 21, 2007

Head of Defense Logistics Agency Says IT Is His No. 1 Weapon
As the U.S. marks the start of its fifth year in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Robert Dail, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, is placing IT at the core of his strategy to end the snafus and make the military supply organization more responsive to the troops. Dail is on a mission to use an ERP system to turn DLA into a demand-driven organization that pushes supplies directly to the troops on the front lines. His model is FedEx, delivering orders within days and allowing customers to track them online. Being on the front lines also means the agency has to be able to get where the action is--quickly. Therefore, this summer, Dail plans to further test and implement a wireless supply chain system that can be deployed anywhere in the world and be online within hours.
"The world requires that we buy things and deliver them when the [troops] need them. So, information becomes very critical," Dail says. That means accurately forecasting soldiers' future demand for items such as medical supplies, spare parts, food or clothing, and being able to get those items out fast.
Source: CIO, http://cio.com

Low-Cost Collaborative Infrastructures Hand You World-Class Capabilities
Can you name the most important development in the software industry of the last decade? Is it Linux, Web 2.0, services-oriented architectures, or industry consolidation? Maybe it's the Amazon.com cloud.
Officially called Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), it's the equivalent of a 21st Century utility. Users pay 10 cents an hour to harness its nearly unlimited computing capacity, allowing anyone to leverage the size and reach of the world's greatest e-commerce engine -- from the computer geek testing a new algorithm from her dorm room to a Mumbai-based start-up that wants to roll out a new call-center service without spending all its capital on computers.
Amazon's cloud is one of many new low-cost collaborative infrastructures -- such as free internet telephony, open-source software, and global outsourcing -- that allow individuals and small producers to harness world-class capabilities, access markets, and serve customers in ways that only large corporations could in the past.
Unlike the previous generations, today's entrepreneurs can buy, off the shelf, practically any function they need to run a company. With storage, computing services, and other digital utilities on tap, business infrastructures that used to be expensive and complicated are increasingly cheap and easy to use.
Source: CRM Daily, http://www.crm-daily.com

DoD Supplier Makes RFID Mandate Work for It as Well
Wornick Company supplies meals, ready-to-eat (MREs) to the military, producing more than 500 pallets each week. A Department of Defense mandate stated that all cases and pallets had to be shipped with passive RFID-enabled labels and that the military had to be sent advanced shipping notices at the time a shipment left a supplier's facility. Wornick began implementing RFID for compliance only (i.e., not using the data to affect its own operations and keeping the system separate from its ERP and manufacturing systems) at its plant in McAllen, Tex. The RFID solution was in place for only four months when Wornick decided to close the plant in McAllen and open a new one in Cincinnati. Wornick saw this as an opportunity to design its RFID system from scratch. "At the old plant, we weren't using the information generated by RFID technology for our own benefit--we were just giving it to the military to meet their requirements," says David Hofmeister, CIO of Wornick. "When we moved to a new plant, we decided that we were going to take advantage of RFID and pass the data through to our ERP system."
Source: Integrated Solutions, http://integratedsolutionsmag.com

No Wonder the Business Is Stumbling--They're 'Lusers'
It ought to be simple, says software developer Dan Tienes, but working with IT too often is anything but.
IT departments lose out when staff refer to users as "lusers," and scorn, ignore or treat their customer base like the enemy. That's right--customer base. And the customers? They are too often clueless about the role they play in project failures, and in general, about why IT can or can't do something.
Tienes, a former programmer and current software development manager, is so concerned about this, that he is writing a book, tentatively titled "It Ought To Be Simple: How To Work With Your Company's IT Department," about the failure of IT/business alignment, and how the problem lies more with people, than processes.
Source: Optimize, http://optimizemag.com

Do Enterprise Software User Interfaces Make You Smile or Frown?
Vendors of enterprise software, take heed. Many users simply find the user interfaces of your products downright difficult to comprehend. Here are 10 guidelines for creating user interfaces that will bring smiles to customers' faces.
Source: Managing Automation, http://www.managingautomation.com

BPM Isn't Just for the Fortune 500 Anymore, Microsoft Says
Business process management (BPM) has hit its stride within larger companies, and it's now ready for mainstream adoption among small and mid-sized firms. That's Microsoft's view, and to seize the opportunity, the company has announced creation of a Business Process Alliance aimed at lowering the barriers to BPM adoption.
"The three primary roadblocks to BPM technology adoption outside of the Fortune 500 are cost, complexity and the need for connectivity," says Steven Martin, director of product management in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft. "We're addressing all three of those challenges both on our own and with our Business Process Alliance partners to ensure mass adoption."
Source: Intelligent Enterprise, http://www.intelligententerprise.com

Your Suppliers May Pay You to Switch to Online Payment Systems
More large organizations are starting to use online payment vendors to facilitate payment processing while enabling them to capture supplier-offered discounts. An online payment service acts as an intermediary between a company's accounts-payable department and the supplier, speeding the payment process while eliminating paper invoicing and most of the labor-intensive invoice-purchase order matching function.
For example, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's shift to a hosted online payment service reaps $500,000 in annual early-payment discounts from suppliers who now get paid faster.
Source: Baseline, http://www.baselinemag.com

America Tanks in Number of Needed Techies with Advanced Degrees?
As momentum builds on Capitol Hill to do something about the rising economic challenge from China and India, political support is coalescing around a pat remedy: boost America's long-term competitiveness by getting more U.S. youth to study science and engineering.
Unveiling the "America Competes Act" recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for hiking U.S. investment in basic research and to improve math and science education. The Innovation Agenda endorsed by the House Democrats calls for producing 100,000 new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians over four years.
No quarrel here. These are fine ideas at a time when China, India, and other nations are investing massively to increase their competitiveness in technology. But does increasing the number of engineering grads really get to the heart of America's competitiveness challenge? A new study from Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Center on Globalization, raises some interesting questions. It concludes that the focus on undergraduate engineering numbers is misplaced. What U.S. policymakers really should worry about is what is happening at the master's and doctorate levels.
Source: Business Week, http://businessweek.com

Japanese Logistics Operators Linking Up with Foreign Partners
If you can't beat them, join them. Traditionally, Japanese logistics firms have preferred to move on their own, often building extensive domestic networks and close ties with their predominantly Japanese clientele that foreign competitors could only envy. Now there appears to be a growing realization that international expansion may be best achieved through partnerships, perhaps even with foreign partners.
The latest sign of the new direction came recently when NYK Group, the $16bn logistics giant built around ocean carrier NYK Line, announced a strategic alliance with Panalpina. The partnership aligns the Swiss forwarder with Yusen Air & Sea Service, NYK's forwarding subsidiary.
Source: Air Cargo World, http://www.aircargoworld.com

Fresh Item Management Technology: Are You a Caveman or a Spaceman?
Fresh item management (FIM) technology has matured over the past five years, and its use can generate more than $120,000 additional annual profit per store. With improved demand prediction engines, production planning capabilities, and comprehensive recipe management, now is the time for retailers to embrace FIM technology and create differentiation via their perishables strategy.
Source: AMR Research, http://amrresearch.com

Don't Want Supplier Surprises? Then Know Them at the Highest Levels.
It's an overused expression, but it's true: You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.
For Richard B. Jacobs, vice president of supply chain management at Eaton Corp., making sure the honey jar is full is a best practice he insists on performing.
"In order to have a really successful supply chain you need to have a good relationship with those critical partners and suppliers to ensure not only are you going to get supplied, but to make sure that the philosophy between your company and their company are similar and the expectations that they have of you and that you have of them align," says Jacobs.
Good relationships are critical for Eaton, a diversified industrial manufacturer with 2006 sales of $12.4bn.
According to Jacobs, Eaton plans to grow to $18bn by 2010. If the company is going to grow by 50 percent, it needs to know its suppliers have the financial wherewithal to grow with it.
"Unless you have high-level relationships with your really critical suppliers, you really don't know if those suppliers are with you or not. You could have a surprise," explains Jacobs.
Source: Industry Week, http://industryweek.com

Copiers a Threat to the Enterprise's Secrets? Sure.
Consumers are bombarded with warnings about identity theft. Publicized threats range from mailbox thieves and lost laptops to the higher-tech methods of e-mail scams and corporate data invasions.
Now, experts are warning that photocopiers could be a culprit as well. And not just to consumers, but to businesses as well.
That's because most digital copiers manufactured in the past five years have disk drives -- the same kind of data-storage mechanism found in computers -- to reproduce documents. As a result, the seemingly innocuous machines that are commonly used to spit out copies of tax returns for millions of Americans can retain the data being scanned.
If the data on the copier's disk aren't protected with encryption or an overwrite mechanism, and if someone with malicious motives gets access to the machine, industry experts say sensitive information from original documents could get into the wrong hands.
Some copier makers are now adding security features, but many of the digital machines already found in public venues or business offices are likely still open targets.
Source: BPM Today, http://www.bpm-today.com

Everybody Has a Dashboard, But Are They Being Used Effectively?
Dashboards should not be an analytical island. They need to measure what is impossible to quantify otherwise: the collaboration with customers, between departments, and with suppliers and service providers. That's one of the critical points being lost in the rush -- it seems everyone is on to find their own private "dashboard nation."
Source: CRM Buyer, http://crmbuyer.com

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Supply Chain Technology's Most Wanted
How are companies investing their supply chain technology budgets and what tops their 'wish lists'? Our second annual Technology Survey, conducted with the Aberdeen Group, answers these questions, providing a benchmark to help readers assess their own technology road maps.
In the April issue of Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies magazine